ut six
feet, were high above the great boilers. In fact, as Max gazed down he
had a bird's-eye view of the interior, and could see workmen flitting to
and fro, stoking the great furnaces in blissful ignorance of the fact
that a bolt which might destroy them with their engines was on the point
of being shot.

Drawing back his head, Max drew a bomb of his own manufacture from his
pocket and lit the fuse. Then he leaned through the window, and, shading
his mouth with his hands so that his words might carry downwards and be
heard above the roar of the engines, cried in quick, urgent, warning
tones:

"Fly for your lives--the engine-house is being blown up! Fly! fly! fly!"

The workmen looked up, startled, and into their midst Max flung his
bomb. The men scattered to right and left, and a second or two later it
burst with a splutter, sending out a great puff of white, pungent smoke.
It was quite harmless, but the men did not know that, and a great cry of
alarm went up and a terrific stampede began towards the nearest exit.

"Now, Dubec," cried Max energetically, "light the fuses and fling them
in. It matters little where they fall so long as we cover a wide area."

In a few seconds the shells had been flung down into the power-house,
right in among the boilers and machinery. Then the two men took to their
heels and fled, followed by Dale, who had already divested himself of
his borrowed plumes and donned his own.

The success of their enterprise was complete. Hardly had they got clear
of the building before a series of heavy explosions occurred in the
interior of the power-house, followed by the upward burst of great
clouds of smoke and steam. Instantly all the lights in the whole of the
Durend workshops and the great lights in the yard went out, and the roar
of machinery slackened and gradually ceased. The entire works were at a
standstill, and the whirr of lathes and clink of hammers were succeeded
by shouts of alarm from the thousands of workmen as they poured
excitedly out into the open air.

* * * * *

The alarm and excitement were not decreased when, almost immediately,
there was a great outburst of flame in one of the large workshops
devoted to the building of the bodies of railway carriages and trucks,
and the chassis of motorcars. With extraordinary rapidity the flames
leapt up from floor to floor, until the great yards in the vicinity, a
moment before plunged in blackness by t